I have two autoimmune diseases: crohn's disease and lupus. Crohn's disease is a condition where there are blisters and cuts in the intestines and Lupus is a form of Arthritis, which affects the joints. These two conditions don't affect my life as much as they used to, but I still have to take a couple of medications for it, follow a certain diet, and on days that I have flare ups, I have to be careful about mobility or digestion. I've had Chron's disease for my whole life and so far I've had flare up every 6 or so years. When these flare ups happen, sometimes I have to go to the hospital and other times I don't. There was one flare up I've had where I needed to get monthly infusion treatments, which was like chemo therapy but it's not as strong, because my immune system was attacking my liver. Luckily, this didn't affect my attendance too much. I just had to leave school a couple of hours early for the appointments, however, the treatment often resulted in me missing school the next day because it drained my energy, the same symptoms I've had for Lupus, which I will explain later. This went on for a year and a half before I had an allergic reaction to my own treatment. My throat didn't fully close, but I kept coughing more and more often until I started feeling shortness of breath. Luckily the nurse that was in the same room turned off the machine attached to my IV, but it still extremely scary for me, and it was the closest I've been to anaphylactic shock. The good news was this meant that I didn't need to go to these appointments anymore, but I was given a medication that was an alternative that I had to take once per week. Regardless of the severity of my Crohn's flare ups, I have to get certain medications to get rid of any irritation or bleeding. As for Lupus, I've been diagnosed with it when I was 14 and I have flare ups that depend on the weather. For example, my joints will swell up when the temperature is colder, like during the winter or on some rainy or windy days. These flare ups also happen during the spring and fall, but only when the weather suddenly gets colder from what it was a few hours before. However, my flare ups from Lupus don't just swell up my joints, it can also cause me to have no energy whatsoever. I just end up sleeping throughout the day (usually waking up between 11 am and 2 pm) even when I've gotten a full night's sleep of 10 hours. When my joints swell up, it is usually either on one of my ankles or my knees, occasionally on my hips or wrist. This is just in my case. It might be different for someone else who has Crohn's disease or Lupus. My goals for the future are to have a good work life balance, and for others to simply treat me the same way as everyone else. At the same time, if I'm ever having a flare up I still appreciate the people that try to make sure I'm doing okay, both physically and mentally.

When you're either going to college or getting a job, it's important to have a financial balance so that you're overspending on anything, especially when it might not be a necessity. This isn't entirely a piece of advice, but I was given a pie chart called Spending Guidelines (% of net income) that is used to categorize your monthly income: 30% on housing, 11% on transportation, 20% on food, 10% on savings, 5% on clothes, 12% on gifts and entertainment, 5% on your debt, and 7% on other things (miscellaneous). This is crucial for college students because the biggest factors in student loan debt is housing followed by supplies (textbooks) and tuition. This is due to on-campus dorms usually costing between $10,000 and $15,000 per year. If you divide that by the 9 to 10 months that you'll be staying on campus to study, you're paying between $1,000 and $1,700 per month, which in most places is a lot more expensive than just renting an apartment near your college campus. In addition to that, since 30% of your income is supposed to be on housing, the expected monthly in order to afford your dorm is between $3,333 and $5,555 which isn't attainable for young adults even if you have a full time job that pays you $15 per hour. The other big factor to remember is getting supplies, and textbooks sold on campus are oftentimes, twice to three times the price of the same copies that you can rent outside of the campus, so I would recommend renting textbooks from Amazon or Ebay that charge you $30 to $40 compared to on campus, hard-copy textbooks which are $55 to $70. Digital textbooks can even save you room in your book-bag.

During the Fall semester of my Senior year, I decided to take a financial literacy class for two reasons; to get more electives credits, and more importantly, to learn as much about finances as I can knowing that I will be living on my own soon and I have already decided to go to college, so like anyone else, I want to avoid as much debt as possible. The first important thing was knowing how you're expected to be paid based on where you work and for which career, between the rest of your work lifestyle and your salary. I believe this is important to learn because students are almost always in a lot of debt based on their major and the degree level so finding the proper career that is suited for your diploma with the right amount of payment for fitted said career will provide young adults with little to no debt the work lifestyle they have always dreamed of. The second important thing was tax deductions. Oftentimes it seems like you're not getting paid enough from your part-time or even full-time job, but that's because there are tax deductions from each paycheck. In addition to that, you're also expected to pay taxes on anything that you buy, including supplies that you might need for your future career and even in the university you enroll in (if you decide to go to college). It's important to check the tax percentage for every major purchase you make (it often depends on the state and even area code that you live in) to verify that you're paying the right amount in your monthly bills and annual bills. The third and final important thing is to learn how to use credit cards and debit cards from a highly trusted bank that can provide you the resources needed to keep a good credit score, which often depends on your background, credit history (if you have any), and payment history. These are major factors that can persuade the bankers to trust you with however much money you need from them. This can apply to making any major purchase that can provide you with an interest fee. However, you must be careful with these offers because while it might help you with full payment for the purchase, it also gives a monthly fee or most likely a yearly fee in addition to your payment up-front, so you also want to carefully calculate on how long your purchase will last and how much you'll have to pay over that amount of time.

One thing that is important to understand is that math and science are the languages of the universe. There isn't a single circumstance that mathematics doesn't apply to. Not to mention that math is also the backbone of all science. Physics for example, allows you to use math skills between basic algebra and calculus to apply to an object's position, the rate of its movement, acceleration, etc. Chemistry as another example, allows basic addition and subtraction to demonstrate how changing even a single proton can change an atomic element on the periodic table, therefore changing a molecule structure and when this applies to enough molecules can change your substance (a form of matter) completely. This might apply to spirituality because of the theory that we will turn into spirits or ghosts after we die, which can apply to the rules of chemistry because matter cannot be created nor destroyed. In fact, even Albert Einstein said he believed in ghosts for this exact reason. Of course, in order to understand the universe, we need to understand our own world first. That's why I believe that spirituality can help humans further connect with the natural world around us. Spirituality, by definition, involves the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature. This does not necessarily mean that the thing that is greater than humanity is a God, but rather just the creation of an environment where all life can thrive. This a phenomenon where not even a human's sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch or taste can tell us all of the answers about life. Having an inquiry about life is still having scientific curiosity about many different types of environments and the origin of our ecosystem. You don't even need to believe in spirituality to understand that humans like all other forms of like rely on a certain environment to thrive and the creation of that said environment is from given circumstances of possibly random occurrences from the universe. It's still interesting to think about the fact that even when there are other planets that contain life (most of them being bacterial) that our planetary environment (Earth) happens to have the right temperatures, atmosphere, and other resources to create the most advanced ecosystem that we know of today.

First, I pay attention to the location of the college that I plan to attend. The campus should be as close to your home as possible to avoid the need to rent a dorm on campus. Among public universities, the average cost of a dorm room per year (9 to 10 months) is roughly $10,000 to $15,000 making it the biggest cost factor for student loan debt. If your college campus is still somehow not close enough to your home for when you're done with class work for the day, you're still better off getting an apartment that's close to the campus. Even with that said, the cost of housing still must be 30% of your total income or less. This can apply to either your own income if you decide to take a part time job to pay off your student loans, or this can apply to your parents' income. Second, no matter what major you decide to take for your college of choice, it's important to remember that the required textbooks for those courses are expensive, the second biggest factor for student loan debt. Textbooks that are sold on campus are, on average, twice to three times as expensive as renting a textbook from a trusted website. For example, when I was taking a General Zoology class and a Web Technology class, I found that that college website that I was looking for these books under, would cost $50 to $75 just to rent a copy (regardless on whether it was a cover or digital). Therefore, I decided to look on Amazon for the same digital copies which can be rented for a whole semester for $25 to $30. The final thing to worry about is transportation. The least costly way to get to your campus is by bus, even then their schedule might not align with your class schedule, so in case you run into that issue, it's better to invest in a good bike, scooter, or skate board that can help you travel for a few miles. Even if you end up going to a university with a larger campus, riding your bike around can help you see all of the building locations and travel to your classes faster, while being less likely to get lost. Why not invest in a car? Some people might not have their license yet. In addition to that, just buying a used car can still cost thousands of dollars. To summarize it, you should always be careful about where your student loans are being spent because you might be paying an unnecessary amount of money.

Every life counts, even when it might seem irrelevant to the rest of the universe. While we may have uncovered a lot about existence, there’s still a lot more to discover. However there are some things that even our minds can never comprehend, so we should at least take comfort into our own world that happens to be full of mysteries. You see, life’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey and making friends along the way. The search for meaning is in fact the very thing that gives our life meaning, so really the only question that is truly worth asking is “what do I do with my life?”. The only true meaning of life is finding your own way to enjoy it. I find that the way to enjoy life is to live it to the fullest. Would you rather live life to the fullest for 70 days or live a boring life for 70 years? The answer to that might seem obvious, but it’s not. My theory of making every life a relative matter is to think of how much you’ve done rather than how long you’ve done it for. It’s not too late to find some things that you want to be your biggest accomplishments in life. Go ahead and take a few minutes of your time to create a bucket list or a goodbye video because you never know when it might be your last day alive.

My dream is to one day be a biologist that can occasionally study different nature preserves from across the world. I would have this career from earning a bachelor's or masters in Biology with a side major in Mathematics. I would be working a few hours longer than the average 9 to 5 job so that I can get a lot of work experience while still having time spent at home. When I come home to from work to my dream house, a small A-frame home, I would have my own at-home office to finish any work that I'm behind on. I would also be able to drive to work on an environmentally-friendly car; one that doesn't use a small amount of gas mileage compared to other brands, preferably a mini cooper because they're roughly the same size as a small Toyota but it has a smaller trunk the design of it makes it look cute.

Many people will agree that life needs to be lived to the fullest. That's why it's important to have a bucket list. You never know when you won't have anymore time to finish it. So far I have done a couple of things that I can cross off my bucket list. First is to save an animal's life. This has happened twice, the first time is when my family was raising chickens and one of them got their head stuck on some netting that was used to protect our raspberry and blueberry bushes. I just grabbed a pair of scissors and carefully cut the netting around the chicken's neck and pulled it off. The second time was when two chickens and a turkey escaped and there was a dog that was chasing them. Unfortunately the dog had no leash and caught one of the chickens, but I saved the other chicken and the turkey by picking them both up and tossing them back into the chicken run. The second thing I can cross off my bucket is finding a place to move to that is near the countryside. I've always wanted to live near the woods where everything is quiet and I get to see the natural world around me. I haven't moved to the place yet, but it is set up so that I can start living there after I graduate from high school. This brings me one step closer to achieving a few other things on my bucket list such as having my dream house, having my dream car, and being able to travel across the country for vacation.

I always try to keep a balance between my student/work life and my social life. Since I'm not often social, I just do a few things at home that help me relax. I clean the house. I despise seeing dust on the floors or grime on the dishes or in the sink so I just spend about an hour of my day clearing things off the tables and floor, I sweep the whole house floor, I wipe down the tables and counter-tops, and I put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Another thing I do is just listen to music. Even while I do my assignments I grab a pair of my headphones and find a few songs on YouTube to listen to while I work. Sometimes I listen at home to relax myself after a stressful day. I also have a pet cat who I snuggle with. She isn't very social, in fact shy around anyone who isn't in my family, but she always has time to sit on my lap while I pet her after I get home from school. Anytime I want to take care of my mental health during the evenings, I give myself a short spa day. I start off with a warm shower, then I put on a comfortable outfit. After I have dried myself enough I wash my face, brush my hair, brush and floss my teeth, and clean my nails. By the end of the routine it's a few minutes before I get ready for bed feeling refreshed for the next morning.

When it comes to making a positive impact on the climate you always want to start off with something small. For me, it was changing old habits that wastes nonrenewable energy and important resources, so I would turn off all of the lights during the day and at night I would only use the lights in the rooms that I was using. As for saving resources, I used less plumbing by taking shorter showers and reuse the water for flushing the toilet, doing the laundry and doing the dishes. I even use barrels outside of my house to collect rain water for other plumbing uses, especially for growing plants in my backyard. I would also collect all leftovers or food that has gone bad to put into a compost pile, which is used for gardening or farming. However, if you don't live in any rural areas, it's best to start with small scale farming. All of the compost and leftover water can be used to help the crops grow. Once those crops grow into food, you can use the leftovers of those crops to keep planting more, creating an eco-friendly cycle.

Not all disabilities are visible, and some disabilities are from poor mental health. One solution I have in mind for people who struggle with mental health is to allow access to online therapists and counselors, including family therapy and councilors for racial minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. One in every four people have struggled with mental health, and the rates have only increased since the pandemic. The majority of people who struggle with mental health is because of social isolation/loneliness, experiencing discrimination and stigma, social disadvantage, and severe or long-term stress. Online therapy can be accessible to anyone who has a device and mobile data/wifi as well as affordable for families with a lower income. These therapy sessions can be private to only the user and by the end of each session everything that was recorded for the session will be deleted (except in the browser history). This is a small feature that can be used so that the user can feel safe and comfortable with anything he or she has to share with the counselor. There are even many different websites that can give you therapy for any issues like stress, debt/poverty, gender/sexuality, family issues and even for those who are grieving. Even if you don’t have a device, mobile data or wifi, you can always go to a place that has the resources you need to go to online therapy (you might need headphones to keep the sessions private) like your local library or a friend’s house. It’s important that everyone has access to counseling to improve their mental health or they can always talk to a friend or family member if they need help.

One change that I believe would make education better for future generations is changing graduation course requirements. We still need to keep the core subjects as a graduation requirement for high school students (Math, English, History, Science) but all other classes should be within the student's choice to enroll in a specific class in case he or she wants to start a career with that particular subject. For classes outside of the core subjects, it should be required that students take these 4 courses: Drivers Ed (for students 16 or older), Home Ec. (cooking, cleaning, etc.), Finances (bills and taxes) and Sex Ed. (with parent permission). I will first explain why it's important for high school students to take a Drivers Ed class by pointing out the fact that students already have a hard time switching between regular classes and driving classes, so it would make sense if that subject was taught inside of each high school. The other reason for this is so high school Juniors and Seniors can drive themselves to school once they get a license, or a learners permit while a parent or legal guardian is in the car with them. Next there is Home Ec. class, which some of the reasons for this class are obvious, like how you can’t function as an adult if you don’t know how to cook, how to clean, or how to do basic repairs on home appliances (ex. changing a lightbulb). Then there is taking a class on finances, which does apply to some but not every high school. The first reason that it is important for high school students to take a class on finances is so they can learn how to pay taxes, learn about what might be an appropriate payment for your future career, and learn how to properly use a credit/debit card. The last class subject that is very important for high school students to learn is Sex Ed. Not every student has to be permitted to take this class nor would he or she have to if it’s for one of two reasons; the first being that the student already knows a lot about sex ed, which he or she can always take a quiz to verify. The second reason being that this is something that the parent wants to discuss with their child instead, which is perfectly reasonable since the student can then be honest with his or her parents about anything related to sex. Regardless, it is still one of the most important topics to teach so students can know what to do in case of any pregnancies or sexually transmitted infections. Once students graduate high school with the knowledge of these four topics, they can go to college, get jobs, and live on their own as functioning adults.

Everyone wants to follow their dreams, but there are situations where gaining a certain life style isn't possible. Your goals must be something probable based on your own capabilities. Everyone was born in different environments, lifestyles, and ways of thinking. It must be highly considered that everyone has access to learning everything that there is to know about how to survive in a human society; how to approach others, how to take care of yourself, your home, how to give back to your community when there are people who were part of it that helped you during the peak of your youth and innocence. Even when we gain wisdom, intelligence, experience, the human brain is only capable of so much. Everyone wants to follow their dreams, but sometimes you have to compromise. Your dream career, your dream house, your dream car, you can work hard to earn all of that, but there are many other factors to consider as to why this "happily ever after" has not happened to you yet. You can still work hard to earn everything you want, but it's better generalize your wants. Focus on your needs first, then your wants. If you can't get the career, home, car, family you want, find another way that you can still enjoy all of it. Life is short, so don't waste all of it trying to follow one path. Life is not a fork in the road, it's a maze, that you must find your way out of.

1. Trying to avoid debt before college finances start coming in. I hear dorm room expenses is how they get you at those places, so I'm going to live in a nearby apartment instead, using the scholarship for something else. 2. I want to become a biologist, but I don't know what specific field I want to go into yet. All I know is that I at least want to earn a Bachelor's degree. 3. A lot of my obstacles are a little personal.

Everyone says that they support equality and diversity, but not everyone is willing to make the change they need for social justice. It doesn't even necessarily have to be about racial diversity/equality, instead we can have people of many types of minority group represent a community. As a student who isn't nuerotypical and has struggled with two autoimmune diseases, I feel that it is important that we have people with "dis"abilities represent our dream colleges/universities. It doesn't often occur where those who can't do certain tasks don't get pity or neglected. No one wants to be left behind nor be held back over something that a differently abled person can do just as well as abled people. An example of my self, one of the autoimmune diseases I have is lupus, a mild form of arthritis that will sometimes swell up my ankles, knees, or wrists. However, that never stopped me from walking around normally as long as I was wearing a brace or needed a cane. If the swelling occurred on my wrist, I only need help with picking up anything big and/or heavy object. That's it. Basically, many people who are differently abled is more independent than you think. If they need help with something, they will tell you what they're struggling with. Don't overdo it because everyone needs a chance to shine.

Learning the proper ratios of different spending factors. I was given a pie chart showing that 30% of your monthly income should be spent on housing, 20% of it on food, 11% of it on transportation (gas money, insurance, etc.), 5% of it on clothes, 10% of it on savings, 12% of it on gifts and entertainment, 5% of it on your debt (ex. student loans), and 7% of it on something else. For example, if I was working 40 hours per week and make $9 per hour, my monthly income would be $1,440. This means I would have to spend $432 per month on housing, $288 per month on food, $158.40 per month on transportation, etc. This has been helpful for me to figure out how much I need to pay off of the biggest factors in student loans (housing, textbooks, meal plans, transportation, etc).